Simkin Data Types

These are the Simkin data types:

Type Description Example

self a reference to the object owning the script self.field="Hello";

boolean a truth value true or false

integer a signed number 32

float a signed floating point number 32.33

character a single character.Use "\" to quote characters 'm', '\''

string an arbitrary length piece of text.You can embed any text except ".To use " put a slash and then a quote \". "He said \"Goodbye\" and left."

object another Simkin object with methods and fields MyObject

XML element an XML element object <element><subelement>Value1</subelement></element>

TreeNode a TreeNode Object
label [data] { child_label [child_data] }

Type	Description	Example
self	a reference to the object owning the script	`self.field="Hello";`
boolean	a truth value	`true or false`
integer	a signed number	`32`
float	a signed floating point number	`32.33`
character	a single character.Use "\" to quote characters	`'m'`, `'\''`
string	an arbitrary length piece of text.You can embed any text except ".To use " put a slash and then a quote \".	`"He said \"Goodbye\" and left."`
object	another Simkin object with methods and fields	`MyObject`
XML element	an XML element object	`<element><subelement>Value1</subelement></element>`
TreeNode	a TreeNode Object	label [data] { child_label [child_data] }

There are some built-in functions which are used with these types:

isObject(<variable>) - returns true if the variable represents an object
length(<variable>) - returns length of string value
charAt(<variable>,<index>) - returns nth character in a string (the first character is index 0)

Variables are used without declarations.

The type of a variable is implied by its value, and Simkin will convert to different types as required.

The chart below indicates how this happens:

Type Conversions

From/To	integer	float	boolean	string	character
integer	n/a	1 becomes 1.0	0 becomes false all other values are true	1 becomes "1"	converts to character code
float	rounded down	n/a	0.0 becomes false all other values are true	1.0 becomes "1.0"	converts to character code
boolean	true becomes 1 false becomes 0	true becomes 1.0 false becomes 0.0	n/a	true becomes "true" false becomes "false"	true becomes 't', false becomes 'f'
string	"1" becomes 1, "abc" becomes 0	"1" becomes 1.0, "abc" becomes 0.0	"true" becomes true "false" or other values becomes false	n/a	first character is taken "abc" becomes 'a'
character	converts to character code	converts to character code	't' becomes true 'f' or other values false	'a' becomes "a"	n/a
XML Element	`<foo>4</foo>` becomes 4	`<foo>4</foo>` becomes 4.0	`<foo>true</foo>` becomes true	`<foo>hello</foo>` becomes "hello"	`<foo>h</foo>` becomes 'h'
TreeNode	`label [4]` becomes 4	`label [4]` becomes 4.0	`label [true]` becomes true	`label [hello]` becomes "hello"	`label [h]` becomes 'h'

For example:

name="Simon";
value=4;
trace(name+value);

will produce:

and

trace(name # value);

will produce

Simon4